Annual Reports > Annual Report 1999

President's Message

This is my first message to you as President of UNA-Canada. I am honoured to work with all of the dedicated volunteers and supporters of this Association, as well as staff in both our National and Branch Offices. I believe profoundly in the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and I welcome the challenges it poses to all of us. The UN is a complex institution which needs both reform and constant attention. It needs a Canadian public which understands what it is – and is not – and remains committed to supporting an active and creative Canadian presence within that institution. All of us must endeavour to find ways through which the UN can be strengthened so that it can become the instrument this world needs to handle the threats to peace and security which arise in different corners of the globe, and to meet the challenges which underlie so many of these conflicts – poverty, pollution, disease, crime and the rest.

The year 1999 presented Canada with a particularly significant opportunity to enhance the work of the UN. For the sixth time we were elected to serve a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. Only three countries (Argentina, Brazil and Japan) have served more terms in that capacity. We were pleased to work with the Department of Foreign Affairs to organize a high-level seminar at the beginning of our term on the Council (January, 1999) to offer input into the approaches Canada could take to enhance the workings of the Council. A second seminar was organized in January of this year, as Canada moved into the second year of its term. This kind of collaborative interaction with Government offices is one of the ways in which the Association can enhance a dialogue between officials and individual Canadians.
Our primary mandate is to enhance public education about the United Nations. In the following sections of the Report you will read the details of specific initiatives at both the national and branch levels. I commend them to you as the tangible evidence of the vitality of our Association. Over the course of the year I was pleased to join with key volunteers in several communities. I recall in particular the two national fund-raising galas in Toronto and Montreal, as well as a dynamic UN Day dinner in Toronto, less formal meetings in Victoria and Hamilton, and the very warm reception we all received last June at our AGM in Edmonton. I salute the dedication of all the local activists without whose efforts so much of our outreach would not reach into communities across this country.

A major accomplishment for UNA-Canada in 1999 was the final elimination of a debt with which we have struggled for several years. It was wonderful to move into a new century with that challenge behind us, but there is a continuing need to ensure sustaining revenues from long-standing and new sources, and to develop partnerships through which we can increase and improve our effective role as a voice for the United Nations. In these turbulent times we need the UN as much as ever. Collectively we can take pride in our accomplishments to date – together we can further our effective input to the essential contributions Canada can make to the global community through the United Nations.